


God Save the Queen

by Geonn



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: Angst, Crossover, Drama, Episode Related, Episode: s05e02 The Beast Below, Episode: s05e12 The Pandorica Opens, F/F, Prison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-03
Updated: 2011-10-03
Packaged: 2017-10-24 07:05:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/260466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Geonn/pseuds/Geonn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Helen Magnus entertains a guest on the last day of her imprisonment and prepares to start the first day of her imprisonment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	God Save the Queen

The longest war of Lady Helen Magnus' life began when she was over eleven hundred years old. Technically, her title was Lady Lady Lady Lady Lady Lady Lady Helen Magnus, but who could keep track? She stood under the spray of her prison suite's shower, pushing a hand through the short spikes of her white hair. She took her time; there was nothing awaiting her so why not take advantage of the little luxury she was allowed? Eventually she had to leave the stall, and she dressed in the standard black uniform of her imprisonment. It clung to her curves, ostensibly to ensure she hid no weapons but sometimes she questioned the true reason behind its design. She covered it with a diaphanous kurta with sleeves that widened bell-shaped at the wrist.

Her suite was spacious, a prison assigned to her by a warden who truly bore her no ill will. In a way it resembled her private chambers of the Sanctuary where she once lived, during a life that seemed less tangible than a dream now. A millennium of distance will do that to a memory. Helen sometimes spent hours simply trying to remember named. William... something. Henry Foster? Her heart broke when she couldn't remember them, knowing how truly special they had once been to her heart.

A thousand years was simply too much for one mind to hold. She walked to the porthole and looked out. Space. Even after a century, it was difficult to believe she was actually aboard a spaceship. Earth was gone, burned to a crisp. It had been one hundred years since the last of humanity boarded ships, and since Helen's war against the monarchy began in earnest. With the discovery of other sentient life in the universe, her mission became incredibly more complex. Humans hated and feared Abnormals, and their xenophobia was magnified a thousandfold when the aliens became common knowledge. Helen took it upon herself to defend those who couldn't defend themselves.

Behind her, the door to her chambers was unlocked. Helen turned only slightly; if her mental calculations were correct, the visit was right on schedule. The door opened and the Queen entered Helen's cell. They coexisted in the same space without speaking for several minutes, the door sliding shut behind Her Royal Highness and sealing them together. Helen never spoke first. Finally, Queen Elizabeth the Tenth reached out.

"I'm ready to listen."

Helen closed her eyes. She was so damn tired of this. But she turned to face Liz Ten and managed a smile. "I'm sure you are, Liz. Please. Sit."

Liz wore her standard red velvet cloak, the porcelain mask she used to wander the corridors of her country was clasped between her hands. She stepped into the room and took the seat offered. Helen sat on the couch and crossed her legs, folding her hands on her knees. She had the speech fairly memorized by now, but sometimes she embellished with new items in the hopes it would change the outcome. She met Liz's gaze and began to speak. "My name is Lady Helen Magnus. You've knighted me seven times for my assistance. I tell you the truth, my queen, and you reward me with a knighthood and then proceed to lock me into this cell for another ten years while you choose to forget everything I've said."

"Why would I do that?" The tremor in Liz's voice told Helen that she'd already figured everything out. She just needed confirmation of her sin from an outside source.

"Because one hundred years ago when the Earth was dying, you enslaved a magnificent creature. The very same creature upon whose back this new country was built. You fuel it with human beings. You do this not because you are evil, but because you feel it is the only way." Helen felt her own voice cracking because she'd been through this all before. "And now it's far too late to make amends. You can either continue enslaving the beast, or you can release it and sign the death warrant of every human being on this vessel.

"That is the truth you make yourself forget every ten years. That is why you have me imprisoned here, so that you can forget I even exist and continue with your reign as if everything is fine."

Liz was shaking her head. "No. No. Someone would have stopped me..."

"I tried to stop you," Helen snapped. "The royalty was the only friend my Sanctuary network had left, and I threw that away to fight back. Scotland abandoned you because they thought your plan was reprehensible. Other countries survived the destruction of Earth, but you were the only person who did so by enslaving a sentient creature."

Liz had pressed back into her seat under Helen's assault. "How long?"

"One hundred years. And every ten years, you visit me here and we have this discussion."

"I've kept you imprisoned here for a century? And you've never tried to escape?"

"No."

"Why not?"

Helen started to answer, but her throat closed. She ducked her chin and looked away, lips pressed tightly together until she was able to speak. "Because so long as I am imprisoned, I can convince myself that I am helpless. If I were free, I would do everything in my power to make amends for this situation. And I determined long ago there is no _right_ answer. Either I condemn this whale to a life of slavery, or I commit mass murder of everyone in the country. By remaining a prisoner, I can fool myself into thinking I'm helpless."

Liz averted her gaze. "I am sorry, Lady Magnus."

"As am I, my Queen."

Helen offered Liz tea, and they drank in respectable silence. When Liz finished her first cup, she looked across the table at Helen. "Why imprisonment? If I feed those who choose to remember to the creature as fuel, why have I kept you alive?"

Helen stared into her teacup and turned her wrist just enough to make the liquid move. She remembered Liz's slender fingers pushing through her hair, the soft hush of the scissors as they cut away the white curls. They had been sitting in the Queen's chambers, and Helen's hair was newly albino. The Queen was dressed in just her sleeping gown, and Helen felt the brush of her breasts as she shifted to cut another section of hair.

"Because we mean very much to each other." She met Liz's eyes. "We were lovers, in the final days of the planet. I had returned to England after the destruction of my American Sanctuary, and you opened your home to me. At that point, my Sanctuary had been connected to the Royal Family for one thousand years. You were intrigued by my work, so you granted me a special audience. That was the first time you knighted me." She smiled a bit as she remembered their past ceremonies.

 _"This is really unnecessary..."_

 _"Humor me. You might remember, but I don't. So just to keep things official in the public record... Rise, Lady Magnus of the Sanctuary."_

"I can't forget again. I won't."

"You must," Helen said softly. "This isn't the sort of decision you can make right with one grand gesture. Whatever you decide, there will be massive death. The creature is enslaved, but alive. The people who ride upon it are alive and oblivious. We must forget if we are to ever look ourselves in the mirror."

Liz rose and walked behind the couch to look out the porthole. "For how long? For the rest of our lives? How long will that be?"

Helen's eyes darkened. "You've no idea how often I've asked myself that very question, Liz."

"So once more into ignorance?"

"Not once more." Helen stood and stepped behind Liz. She placed her hands on Liz's shoulders and rubbed them through her cloak. "Every ten years or so, the burden becomes too great. You'll know that you've forgotten something massively important and you will investigate. Because you are who you have always been. And when you discover the truth, there will be no choice but to erase it all and start over again."

"But tonight, I remember. Tonight, for the first time in a very long while, I am myself and there is no wool over my eyes." She brought Helen's hand to her lips and kissed the knuckles. She turned, and Helen's hands met on the back of Liz's neck. "You said we were lovers once, before I made you my enemy."

"Yes."

"I think I should like to remember that, before I blot everything out again."

Helen bowed, her lips brushing gently across Liz's. She swept back the sides of Liz's cloak, resting her palms against her bare shoulders. Their kiss deepened, and Helen closed her eyes as she pressed Liz against the bulkhead. Liz lifted one leg, hooking it against Helen's hip. Her movements, tentative at first, as if she was slowly remembering something she long ago forgot how to do.

The kiss ended when Helen pulled away. She ran her hand down Liz's arm, pressed their palms together and guided her to the bed. They undressed as if it was a ritual. After more than a century, Helen supposed it was. She kissed the curves of Liz's breasts before guiding her down onto the mattress to continue undressing her. She lay between Liz's legs and made love to her with lips and tongue, Liz's fingers raking through her hair as she writhed in pleasure.

Helen kissed Liz's thighs and sat up to undress, eyes locked on Liz as she took off her clothes and then crawled up Liz's body. Liz sat up to kiss Helen's breasts, then her stomach, and then lay on her back with Helen straddling her head. Helen crossed her arms and rested her cheek against them, eyes closed as the Queen teased her clit with the tip of her tongue.

After they had each climaxed once, their lovemaking became slow. They touched each other, Helen with the assured touch of a long-time lover and Liz with the tentative strokes of someone trying to remember a song she once played long ago. Helen didn't count their orgasms and merely held Liz when her body became rigid and her breathing grew rough. They kissed as they touched, and at one point Liz stroked Helen's hair and looked at her with recognition.

"Your hair used to be black."

"Yes."

Liz kissed a line over Helen's eyebrow, ecstatic to have remembered. They finally slept, wrapped in each other's arms and dreading what would have to happen next. Both knew they couldn't fight it, wouldn't want the world they would be faced with if they managed to win. Faced with the choice between life as a slaver or the person who brought about the death of everyone in the galaxy, it was an impossible choice. It was a case of ignorance truly being bliss.

Helen held the sleeping Queen, knowing that it was only a matter of time before the reset switch was thrown. The knowledge was eating at Liz even now, in her sleep. She would go to the booth as soon as possible after she woke to have her mind wiped clean. Liz Ten, the Queen, was Helen's enemy in a war neither of them wanted to win. Helen kissed Liz's hair and tried to sleep.

When she woke, Liz was gone. A message on her status board revealed that her sentence had been decided. She would remain as prisoner in the Tower of London for the foreseeable future. Release would be considered in fifteen years. Helen erased the message and walked to the porthole. She hugged herself as she looked out at the stars passing by, and she rested her forehead against the glass as sorrow washed over her as it always did.

#

Helen was fourteen hundred years old when her sentence was lifted. She had been imprisoned for three centuries, and leaving her cell felt blasphemous. Liz Ten escorted her to a promenade where they were surrounded by people, and Helen felt overwhelmed to be in the presence of so many. Liz purchased clothes for her, and Helen modeled each outfit before choosing which she would buy. Something had changed, something amazing and drastic, and Helen waited until they were safely back in Liz's chambers before she asked the question.

"Someone very wise... a traveler... found the answer hidden in plain sight."

"A wise traveler, huh?" Helen whispered. "Tall, big ears, leather jacket?"

Liz furrowed her brow and shook her head.

"Spiky black hair, blue or brown suit, wearing trainers?"

"No. It was a woman."

Helen raised an eyebrow. "Ah! Brunette, very fair-skinned?"

"Fair-skinned, but ginger."

"I don't think I've met that version of him yet," Helen said thoughtfully. "Something to look forward to, I suppose. Tell me."

Liz Ten explained how a girl, such a young girl wearing a nightgown and robe, had set the whale free. "She gave it the choice, and it opted to help us. Even after everything we'd put it through. Three hundred years of enslavement and it didn't even ask for an apology. How can we possibly make amends for what we've done?"

Helen realized that Liz wasn't speaking solely about the whale. "There's no need to make amends. You were acting in the best interest of your people. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."

"Cold comfort."

"We've gotten very good at taking whatever comfort we can get, you and I."

Liz smiled and took Helen's hand and held it in both of hers. "Well, if we cannot make amends, perhaps we can atone. Three hundred years of imprisonment, it's time you got to stretch your legs. Wherever you want to go, I'll give you the means to get there. It's the least I can do for you."

"Thank you, Liz. For now, I think I would just like to... to walk." She looked around the Queen's chamber. It was massive, but she had spent the last three hundred years confined to a single room of it. She was eager to see what lay in store. "Would that be all right?"

"Of course. Come and find me when you're done."

"No... come with me. We've a great deal of lost time to make up for."

Liz smiled and let Helen pull her off the bed. The war was over, and Helen had finally won. It was time to enjoy the spoils of victory.

#

 _Eighteen hundred and fifty years later,_  
Helen heard them coming and finished the pre-flight check before she left the cockpit to greet them. She could hear Liz's voice echoing off the walls, the sound of four feet moving at a rapid clip through the hangar. Helen had been told to prepare her shuttle, but hadn't been told why or where she was going. She was blonde again, her hair styled in ringlets as she hadn't worn since her early days at Oxford. She was dressed similarly as well, attempting to reawaken those memories through tactile sensations. The only difference was that now she wore trousers and boots to complement the outfit. Much easier to run in.

"--as good as you are, you'll not get very far in that ship you stole from the Stormcage. Trust me, this will get you as far as you need to go."

Helen stepped out of the shuttle and greeted Liz and her companion. Liz smiled. "Lady Lady Lady Lady Lady Lady Lady Lady Helen Magnus, meet Doctor River Song."

River gave her a tight smile, amused despite the obvious gravity to the situation. "That's a lot of ladies."

"Don't be fooled." Helen offered her hand. River shifted a rolled-up canvas to her left hand to accept, squeezing gently before dropping the hand to her side. "Liz tells me you require a taxi."

"If it's not too much trouble, yes."

"Anything for my Queen." Helen gave a mock curtsey.

"Watch yourself," Liz chided. "Mockery will get you spanked."

River gave a theatrical shudder. "Oh, in that case let the mockery begin."

Helen stepped aside and held out her arm, ushering the other ladies into the ship. When Liz passed her, Helen gave her a swat on the rear end that made the Queen yelp. Helen closed the cargo hatch of the ship and went ahead to the cockpit. She looked at the coordinates River provided and raised an eyebrow in surprise. "Not a very friendly neighborhood. And not very near. It'll take us a while to get there."

"Three women on a long journey in a confined space." River sprawled in one of the passenger seats. "I'm sure we'll find some way to pass the time."

Helen smirked and prepared the ship for liftoff. The possibilities were endless.


End file.
